The Haunted - Jessica Verday [35]
I needed to create a perfume that evoked a summer storm. Cut grass, frantic wind, the heady scent of rain… with just a touch of fresh sheets drying on the wind. And I needed something powerful and strong, a dry scent to mimic thunder. Perhaps vetivert or fennel?
A yawn interrupted my thoughts, and I stretched my arms over my head. The soft pounding of rain on the roof was like a soothing melody, something rhythmic and primal. I gathered several pillows, moved them to the end of the bed, and lay down with my head where my feet should go. I could watch the storm better that way.
I felt safe and warm in my little cocoon. And when I closed my eyes, lightning still played behind my eyelids. Dancing and leaping in strange, crackling patterns…
Thunder rolled and echoed all around me, but I knew I was dreaming, because the storm was inside my room. White forks of lightning crackled and spread across the ceiling, and climbed down the walls like vines. Every time the thunder sounded, it spread through the vines with tiny pulses of electricity.
Then I noticed a cloaked figure sitting on the edge of my bed. It was Kristen.
“Take a walk with me, Abbey.” I could hear her voice as clear as day, but her lips weren’t moving. “Let’s take a walk.”
And suddenly we were in the cemetery. On the far side. Away from the main gates.
My feet were moving even though I tried to stop. The tips of my toes dragged along the hard ground as I floated along. Hovering, just above the bare earth, yet still touching.
“Where are we going, Kristen?” I asked.
She turned her cloaked face to me and pointed straight ahead. I recognized the twisting path immediately. It led to Nikolas and Katy’s house.
I sucked in a breath. Nikolas and Katy weren’t real. Having tea with the Headless Horseman and Katrina Van Tassel from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was just something that I’d made up. We had to be going somewhere else.
We walked on. It felt like hours, and gradually I noticed that everything around me was damp. The ground, the trees, the springy ferns that reached for our legs. It was raining, but I wasn’t getting wet.
Neither was Kristen.
We came to a heap of old stones and rotting shingles. Dead wisteria clung to what was left of the fallen-in stone fireplace, and chills ran down my spine. What had happened to their house?
Kristen stopped and turned, pushing back the hood from her face. Her hair was soaking wet. “Go,” she said.
I shook my head. “Not without you, Kristen. Come with me. Please come with me?”
“I can’t, Abbey. I can’t go with you. You’re all alone.” A clap of thunder woke me up, this time for real, and I was seconds away from screaming.
It’s in my room. The thunder is in my bedroom! Lightning illuminated the outline of my bed for a moment, clearly showing that the storm was outside where it was supposed to be. I gazed around me. It’s not in here. It was just a dream. Nothing to be afraid of.
Sometime during the night, the rain had turned softer. Instead of sounding like a fleet of soldiers marching across the roof, now it was only a steady drum in the background. I flicked on my nightstand lamp and got up to go look out the window.
The bushes next to the trees moved a little, and I watched, waiting to see what was there.
Then they moved again. I grabbed a blanket off the edge of my bed and started walking to the stairs. The porch swing was covered, so it would be dry, and had a better view. I could sit there and see what it was.
As soon as I stepped out the front door, a cool breeze reminded me that all I had on was my thin white summer dress, and I wrapped the blanket around myself.
I sat down on the swing and drew my feet up underneath me. Gradually, I was able to make out each tree and bush separating our yard from Mr. Travertine’s. Within a couple of minutes the bushes moved again, and then a deer came forward. He was all spindly legs and